Chap. VLL] 
THE ELEPHANT. 
217 
till a captured elephant begins to relish food, and grow 
fat upon it, he becomes so fretted by work, that it kills 
him in an incredibly short space of time. 
The first employment to which an elephant is put is 
to tread clay in a brick-field, or to draw a waggon in 
double harness with a tame companion. But the work 
in which the display of sagacity renders his labours of 
the highest value, is that which involves the use of heavy 
materials ; and hence in dragging and piling timber, or 
moving stones 1 for the construction of retaining walls 
and the approaches to bridges, his services in an un- 
opened country are of the utmost importance. When 
roads are to be constructed along the face of steep de- 
clivities, and the space is so contracted that risk is in- 
curred either of the working elephant falling over the 
precipice or of rocks slipping down from above, not only 
are the measures to which he resorts the most judicious 
and reasonable that could be devised, but if urged by his 
keeper to adopt any other, he manifests a reluctance 
sufficient to show that he has balanced in his own mind 
the comparative advantages of each. An elephant ap- 
pears on all occasions to comprehend the purpose and 
object that he is expected to promote, and hence he vo- 
luntarily executes a variety of details without any 
guidance whatever from his keeper. This is one cha- 
racteristic in which this animal manifests a superiority 
over the horse ; although his strength in proportion to 
his weight is not so great as that of the latter. 
His minute motions when engrossed by such opera- 
, 1 A correspondent informs me means of a rope, which, he either 
that on the Malabar coast of India, draws with his forehead, or ma- 
the elephant, when employed in nages by seizing it in his teeth, 
dragging stones, moves them by 
